When someone you love dies…
It’s like blinking your eyes and waking up in an entirely different world.
A world that doesn’t know that it’s missing a vital piece.
A world that feels surreal and emptied of something so incredibly important but somehow keeps moving forward anyways.
And when someone you love dies earlier than they’re supposed to because of an accident or a disease or some freak situation no one could’ve prepared for...it feels like walking through a daydream you can’t quite snap out of.
There are days when you forget that your loved one is no longer with you and you call their name or dial their number or start typing them a message.
There are days when their absence is so deeply felt, living without them seems impossible.
Sometimes I wake up and I think, “No, that’s not real, that didn’t happen. I’ll see them on thanksgiving” or “It was just a dream and they’re in their room breathing and existing” or “One day when I’m walking through some random Walmart I’ll pass by them and they’ll have a family and tell me all about their life and how this was all just a cruel and unusual joke someone was playing in poor taste”.
Sometimes the world doesn’t quite make sense to me because there were people who were always supposed to be in the picture-- my future was colored with so many faces that no longer exist. So it doesn’t really feel the same anymore and my future, sometimes, doesn’t seem as bright and doesn't make as much sense as it did when those colorful faces were standing in it with me.
I’ve lost a lot of people that I love over the course of my life, a lot more than normal, a lot more than anybody should lose. So when I stumbled across this verse in Matthew 5, “Blessed are those who mourn” after struggling through two funerals in two weeks the previous month, I paused.
"Blessed are those who mourn,"
What a strange thing to say.
Even stranger is that it’s apart of this impressive list of character traits that Jesus is pronouncing as blessed and worthy of cultivation. First, He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” and most commentators agree that to be poor in spirit is to be humble and recognize your need for God-- that you can’t obtain righteousness on your own and are essentially poor or destitute without the righteousness afforded to you through Jesus Christ. The passage goes on to say, “Blessed are the meek” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” “Blessed are the merciful” “Blessed are the pure in heart” “Blessed are the peacemakers” “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on [Jesus’s] account”. All of these things-- apart from persecution and being reviled-- are character traits that need to be cultivated and developed in our lives. Each of these things are things people desire to have or to be in the kingdom of God and in their walk with God. Of course, no one desires to be persecuted but to be a righteous person that stands firmly on the word of God and is persecuted for the sake of Christ is something we expect to experience as Christians and something we respect. But “Blessed are those who mourn” is not a character trait or even really an expected reality of our walk with God. Yes, everyone dies and at some point we will all probably mourn the loss of someone-- hopefully in our very wise old age-- but it’s not the same thing as being a Christ follower in a broken world or being pure in heart. Grief is not a desirable thing for us and yet, God calls us mourners blessed. And why is that? The verse continues, “for they shall be comforted”.
Now, I don’t know if it’s the perfectionist, judgmental, self-critical part of me that makes me think this way but when I read this passage I see a list of desirable character traits that I want to have with a couple of odds-and-ends thrown in that I could do without. I don’t want to be persecuted but I’ve already experienced it (on a very minor scale). I don’t want to be reviled or falsely accused but it’s probably going to happen and I can make my peace with that because I know my reward is great but mourning? Grief? That part throws everything off balance for me.
At least it did, until I stopped thinking of Matthew 5:1-12 as an itemized list of desirable attributes for a citizen of the kingdom of God and started thinking about it as a list of promises.
Which is exactly what it is.
I don't know about you but I’m always prone to err on the side of personal growth and development (i.e. constructive criticism) when I read scripture but sometimes that’s a really unhealthy and narrow-minded view of what God’s trying to communicate because sometimes this loving father is just trying to love His daughter and speak life into my soul. Often though, that love-laced perspective is really hard for me to grasp when I'm reading the Bible because of my own insecurities and shortcomings and also, my tendency to find fault in every little thing I do. It's so much easier for me to see everything as a teachable moment and fuel for growth than to comprehend the truth of my inheritance in Christ, my sainthood, my promises and privileges.
However, these Beatitudes are promises and blessings secured for those belonging to the kingdom of God and what a privilege it is to know that this is our security in Christ.
I don’t think I’m pure in heart or righteous or as merciful as I could be. Like I said before, I always see room for improvement no matter what but when you stake these promises on your identity in Christ and not your skewed insecure perception of your identity in Christ-- when you stake these promises on what God says about you instead of what you think about yourself, you’ll start to see that this particular passage in the beginning of Matthew chapter 5 is Jesus telling you about all the things you have the benefit of-- all the things you have access to in Him. It is not a list of things He wants you to be, It's a list of things you already have and are.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” brought me to tears when I read it this time around-- though I've read it hundreds of times before. Seeing those words on a page, as I'm dealing with so much pain and loss is like God speaking directly to my little self-critical heart because during this particular season of grief, I’ve felt like a failure.
(I know. How do you fail at grief? Trust me, if anyone could manage it, it's your girl right here)
I couldn’t be there for my family the way I needed and wanted to be because of my own personal health issues. I couldn't reach for my loved ones before they left us the way that I wanted to. I felt selfish for having to take care of myself and think about my health in the midst of all this. I felt ashamed for putting my health above being there for other people, even though I know that is absolutely wrong and lacking in compassion and grace for myself. I felt like a failure because I couldn’t pray as hard and as much as I felt like I needed to because of my medications and brain fog and my jumbled words. And the inadequacy, the powerlessness that shouts at you when you feel the need to pray but it’s just not coming out right makes you feel even worse. I had to lean on the Holy Spirit so much and just trust that when I didn’t have the words or when all I could pray was “Jesus” that His name was powerful enough and that He heard my prayer and He responded to it, no matter how weak or feeble it seemed. I felt like a failure in my grief because I gave into the pain and leaned into the sorrow. Truly, I felt the way Jesus did when He said, “My soul is swallowed up in sorrow to the point of death” and I felt just like the psalmist when he said, “My soul is bowed down with grief” and I don’t know why but that made me feel like I was doing something wrong, even though I know that isn’t true in the slightest.
Even now, I feel numb and broken and I don’t feel like running to God or reading my Bible or praying or worshiping. I do my best to do so anyways but it’s like climbing up a really steep hill with a hundred extra pounds on your back. I’m not angry with God or anything like that, my faith isn’t shaken or removed, I just don’t know what to do with all this excess weight I’m carrying on my shoulders. Most often, I just want to distract myself from the pain and I feel like going to God is not the way to do that because if I go to Him, I’m going to have to feel it and embrace it so I can heal from it and that just seems like too much right now. So, I feel like a failure. I feel like God is mad at me for distracting myself-- sometimes letting my desire for distraction lead me to sin-- going to people for comfort and validation, looking to the world for solace and for curling inside of myself. I feel like He’s disappointed and I’m to blame because I’m not grieving well enough.
Yeah, I’ve actually said that to myself. Like it’s a sport I need to get better at or something.
But reading that verse in the middle of the Beatitudes took my focus off of my behavior and my lackluster abilities and set my eyes on God’s love. That one verse changed my whole outlook. It made me believe and trust that my grief is okay, that my sorrow is not something God hates or chastises me for and that He has compassion and real true love for me that doesn’t change through the many seasons I endure. What a novel idea right?
NOW, I know and feel that God is near to me in my broken-heartedness, loving me and holding me even when I can’t pick up my Bible and I don’t have the words to pray for myself or others. Even when my heart is crying out “Why” and I can’t breathe under the weight of all this pain, He is with me, not judging me for my terrible processing skills or giving me a list of problems I need to fix. He just sees me and knows me and is broken-hearted with me and for me, not broken-hearted because of me. He doesn’t have impossible expectations of me in this moment, He just has love and hope and strength and comfort to offer me. He is near to my fragile grieving heart and THAT sounds so much more like the God I know than the God I conjure up when I feel insecure, uncertain, guilty or ashamed. THAT sounds like my heavenly father.
"Blessed are you my daughter in your mourning, for I am here to comfort you in the darkness until the dawn arrives. You need not worry, I’ve got you now. You won’t carry this weight alone my love. Just rest in me, just breathe me in."
THAT sounds like my God.
What comfort I’ve been missing in my sorrow because I couldn’t see past my brokenness. What a shame that it took me so long to stop expecting a slap in the face (as if I’ve ever actually gotten one [I'm rolling my eyes at my own foolishness] Sometimes Ashley...I really can't with you) and lean into the tight, compassionate, comforting embrace of my Lord and Savior.
What a disservice to the truth and to myself and to my relationship with God believing such blatant lies about God’s attitude towards me as I mourn.
I’m soooo grateful that He lovingly took the time to show me the truth by guiding me to His promises. I’m thankful that He is so very patient with me in my weakness even when I’m not patient with myself.
If you are grieving right now or just going through some particularly difficult season in your life, I hope that you know that as messy as things may get for you, as a child of God, you are loved and blessed regardless. I pray that you don’t let the voice of the enemy or your own voice inform your understanding of who God is to you and for you during this time...or ever. I’ve said it before, God is not a “good vibes only” kind of God and He makes that very clear multiple times throughout scripture. So, don’t fall for the rouse of perfectionism, don’t fall for the old “I’m only good enough or acceptable to God when I’m happy and positive and worshipping and in attendance and so on and so forth”. Nothing you could ever do or have ever done has ever made you good enough, period, there’s no such thing as good enough, except in the blood of Jesus. So take God at His word and trust that you are not only comforted in your grieving but you are immeasurably blessed. Know that in the emptiness of your greatest loss you have the greatest favor and the most compassion and the God of the universe holding you as you fall to pieces so when you’re ready, He can piece you back together again. You are not alone or forsaken and whatever darkness your trekking through makes the light of everything God is in you and for you, that much brighter.
Even Now by United Pursuit (feat. Will Reagan)
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